Hmm I agree with about half of what you said in that post ReggieLynch. I agree God is the why and Science is the how, but I think that by saying "God specifically provided the right weather for our evolution" you are just moving the goalpost.

Er, hmm.

I like your illustration of a repeating pattern in the egg starting as a single cell, and evolution starting from a single cell, though I'm not sure it's entirely appropriate here...

jeremiah_1990 wrote:I believe God created the universe and everything in it. And that evolution is an incorrect 'THEORY' made by the human race to neglect God. I want your argument about why you believe that human existence is a freak accident or if we were created for a purpose.

I support your right to believe that God created the Universe, and everything in it.

I too agree that evolution is an incorrect "theory" made by humans. I would also agree that gravity is an incorrect "theory" made by humans. Both have great flaws, imperfections, the products of mere humans.

Evolution was made by humans to explain the variations of life and those in the fossil record, not to neglect God. You tread on thin ice with comments like this. If you want to start a fight, then I recommed taking boxing lessons. Otherwise, do not imply that science and faith are mutually exclusive.

I do not know if humanity is an accident, if we have a purpose, or what that purpose is. I have no arguements for why I do not know. I just don't.

jeremiah_1990 wrote:I believe God created the universe and everything in it. And that evolution is an incorrect 'THEORY' made by the human race to neglect God. I want your argument about why you believe that human existence is a freak accident or if we were created for a purpose.

It would appear that the main objection you have to the far more accurate evolution explanation is that you want to have some sort of a "PURPOSE" imposed on us. Why? We are here and we are glad of it. We do not need someone else's "purpose."

Instead, we create belief systems which bind us into close family-like societies. It is these belief systems that we devise for our own good that have goals which we work together to achieve. The one you are so enamoured of is the "salvation of the soul" and "the Second Coming of Christ." By having belief systems with goals---even goals that are effemeral---we work together in relative harmony to achieve them. They are constructive in that way. All religions provide goal(s) so people bond together to achieve them. That is the evolutionary function of religion.

But a religion does not need to have some supernatural, imposed "purpose." A more recent religion, Marxism, has an egalitarian, communal utopia as its goal. The whole belief system is defective, but it still survives because it provides a common goal.

We humans have "free will", don't we? So why not exercise it and set our own goals. We do not need to be the object of just teleological forces!

what are you trying to do---to kill me!? I have lived to be 80 years old and I depend upon three small medicines a day to keep me going in good shape. Will you do so well yourself some day? Well, certainly not if you think prayer can take the place of what medical science can do! Are you suggesting that if I, for example,broke my leg and had a compound fracture in which part of the bone splinter was sticking through the leg muscle, that prayer would take care of the matter? You just better pray that you never have a broken bone!

jeremiah_1990 wrote:I believe God created the universe and everything in it. And that evolution is an incorrect 'THEORY' made by the human race to neglect God. I want your argument about why you believe that human existence is a freak accident or if we were created for a purpose.

Here is a scientist AND atheist! You ask a fair question. To me, there is no such thing as "an accident," freak or not. Everything is the product of an endless chain of natural cause and effect. The process is always going on and hence all matter is gradually undergoing change. The evolution of life is just one of the changes and it took place over such a vast expanse of time that we are emotionally uncapable of fathoming it. The universe is infinite; we are finite. We just do the best we can to understand as much as we can of the many different cause and effect processes going on all the time. Our explanations are gradually improving. They are always getting more accurate. Each time they become more accurate, we discare the old view and accept the newer and better one. But since they always have the potential to improve, we call them "theories."

When one stays emersed in the Bible, one is transported back some two to four thousand years when people considered everything in terms of black and white, up and down, cold and hot, good and bad, etc. There was no gradation and nothing was judged or known in a relative sense. The concept of time was primitive. People did not then have the tools to think intelligently that we have developed mostly in the last five hundred years.

So, when you absorb yourself in The Old Book, it stunts your ability to think. You come on to a forum like this and ask questions like you were from another world. Many of the group are at a loss as to how to communicate with you. That is why they respond with a light banter and really don't respond responsibly.

I sense sarcasim Minuteman or maybe I just hope your being sarcastic. This seems like a pretty elementary concept but we didn't get where we are today by praying. Science explain alot of How, Why, What & When, but as rational humans we cant expect all things to be explained in an ever changing world. Religion is Guidance, Hope, Religion is merely Subjective and with that from my perspective so is my god. I think that there is a huge difference between what we know is true and what we believe in (for the sake of believing)...Just a thought kind of wanted to share, Im interested in learning others perspectives though

So, when you absorb yourself in The Old Book, it stunts your ability to think. You come on to a forum like this and ask questions like you were from another world. Many of the group are at a loss as to how to communicate with you. That is why they respond with a light banter and really don't respond responsibly.

this is really the primary point of the argument. I am sure the originator of this thread is intelligent enough understand the concept of natural selection. yes the engine of genetic mutation, far as we understand it is more or less random. But the survival factor makes evolution absolutely non-random. The genetic mutation effects a body, which must live in a particular environment. A body carrying disadvantageous mutations will on average have less offspring, gradually weeding bad genes out of the gene pool.

and to call the origin of life an accident is not entirely innacurate, except the connotation of non-purpose it implies, leading to misunderstanding. But go ahead and call it an accident, in enourmous span of the universe, in is an inevitable accident.

as much as i'd like to defend the theory of evolution on various fronts, i know this not the point. No amount of evidence can conquer faith. I know understand this well because i was indoctorinated to believe in God (and various other irrelevant superstitions) as a child. Most people do not escape such indoctorination, i almost wish there was a god so i could graciously pour out my heart of gratitude to him, that i was one of the lucky few from a background of faith to come to see the truth.

The only thing that will change your mind is the realization (if you choose to see it) that science creates a world more beautiful than the one god does. God is a narrowing and limiting tool to control populations of humans.

Steen wrote:Furthermore, just because a text book or a professor has given you information, if you chose to accept it as tue, it doesnt mean that you have done it because they have told you - you most probably have taken it to be the most logical explanation available. Personally I sway to the evolutionary side - to me it makes sense. But the idea of a greater being/God does not seem impossible - but its always going to be a highly debated issue isnt it?

I see no reason why any good scientists could not believe in a “god” even though I, myself, am an atheist. What is all important in my way of thinking is that it is the belief in a personal god that is dangerous to science, that is a god that alters natural cause and effect in response, let us say, to prayers. Personally, I don't believe in the existence of a god any more than in Santa Claus---and for the same reasons. I even deny the existence of “spirits” of any kind. But I feel close to deists, agnostics and pantheists and consider them all to be fellow “Free Thinkers.” In other words, the real issue is not whether “god” does or does not exist but whether he plays around with natural cause and effect if he does exist!

The desire here tends to be to believe both, but just how inconsistent the belief in evolution is with belief in god depends most on what sort of god one has in mind. Even Einstein liked to toy with deism. Belief in a diety entitles one to be called a fellow Free Thinker to me, a life long atheist. The main issue is between Free Thinkers and theists, those who believe in miracles and that their God alters natural cause and effect to suit His will, thus making a mockery of cause and effect determinism. Without belief in natural cause and effect determinism, science cannot exist.

It is possible that there exists a sort of abstract god, a sort of First Cause. He would not have needed to create the Universe because it could just as imposibly have existed forever. This belief can be part of or called "religion," but it need not be.

People like to "reconcile" religion and science. They delude themselves. To reconcile ancient beliefs with science is to compromise and hence corrupt both.

Being a worker of biology,we can not neglect that the human is the result of progressive evolution,but as far as believe is concern,we still believe in "life after death" and "the existance of God"may be because of uneven happening in our surrounding,for which we do not have any exact reason,